IceShanty.com's Ice Fishing Community
North Dakota => Ice Fishing North Dakota => Topic started by: FinnHunt3r on Oct 03, 2014, 06:58 AM
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I've been living on and off in Nodak for three years now, native Michigander, brought here for work. I have almost given up on tip up fishing here, since it seems three inches of ice or more will form over my spools making it easy for walleye to have an easy snack. I gave up on them last year, but while walking through scheels I see rows and rows of tip ups so you all must be using them somehow. Any tips? Don't laught but I have used them in my shanty for basically a dead stick so I didn't have to tend to a second rod, and actually I did fairly well with that method. ::) :tipup:
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are you keeping the spool in the water? If the spool is submerged it shouldn't freeze.
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are you keeping the spool in the water? If the spool is submerged it shouldn't freeze.
the problem the ice is forming so quickly it's freezing over my tip up. I gave up on them before once ice got to be too thick
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Frabill thermal tip ups?
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Hole covers make a huge difference, whether DIY or store bought...
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Yeah hole covers are a must if its below freezing. check out mills fleet farm. Ordered some online last year from there on sale for around $5 i think. Another thing is to make sure and use a sub zero lubricant on your tip ups as well.
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thermal tip up are the only way to go... also when you drill your hole don't kick all the slush away.. its amazing what that little amount of slush and ice can do to keeping a hole open
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I've fished tip ups religiously for a long time. Like to leave them out all night when sleeping on the ice and use the strike sensor pager system to notify if flags pop. Hands down, the best set up is the traditional wooden Beaver Dam tip up with 2 round foam hole covers on each tip up. I've used polar, frabil wooden, frabil round, polar round, polar popups (look like a little rocket), the new frabil straight line (complete junk). The 2 foam hole covers work for two reasons (1) double the insulation (2) Gets the tip up off the ice if the snow is blowing and prevents snow buildup from jamming the flag. All of these other tip ups work when the weather is nice but the beaver dam setups will work when its bitter cold. The lube they put in the shaft (sounds terrible) does not get gummed up when it gets ice build-up on it. They are a little on the spendy side (I think around $40 apiece) but are well worth the money. Plus, they have a longer shaft to keep the spool in the hole, unlike some of the other models. I put two of these out this past Saturday in the wind and cold and did not have to skim them once (partially because we kept pulling fish through the hole), ran them from around 2pm till about 8pm and it was ridiculously cold and windy. Hope this helps....nice website (first post).